Prishtina a great succes for Adria Airways
Prishtina has quickly become a success for Slovenia’s Adria Airways, a claim reinforced by the strong results the airline has seen on the recently launched services from the city to Verona in Italy. In the first three weeks since the route was launched on January 28, the airline carried approximately 2.500 passengers and recorded an average cabin occupancy index of 81.6%. “I am very pleased that we have introduced this service and I expect it to satisfy both Kosovo and Italian citizens”, Adria CEO Klemen Bostjancic said at a recent launch party for the service.
Adria is quickly becoming one of the major players at Prishtina Airport. In 2011 the Slovenian national carrier welcomed some 140.000 passengers on board flights to and from Prishtina, making it the second busiest airline at the airport after Edelweiss. This summer, besides Verona, Adria will be operating flights to Frankfurt, Ljubljana and Munich as well.
Adria is the only former Yugoslav airline to have a secondary base outside of its borders. There have also been other attempts by national carriers in the region to open bases in neighboring countries. Montenegro Airlines has attempted several times to open a base in Belgrade since 2006 but so far hasn’t received the green light from local authorities to do so. In 2010, Jat Airways attempted to open a base at Skopje Airport following the collapse of MAT Macedonian Airlines. However, its subsidiary Aeromak was denied a license by the Macedonian Civil Aviation Directorate.
